part 2.] 
Lydehher: Stegoclon Ganesa. 
45 
in that country, probably long before Siwalik times ; thus Loxodonplanifrons, or an unknown 
allied species, might have travelled westward and given rise to Loxodon meridionalis of the 
English “ Forest Beds,” and subsequently to the living Loxodon africctnus. In the same 
way, Euelep/ias may first have given rise to the Siwalik species, from which again sprung 
the Narbada species and the living Euelephas indicus, and on the other hand, to another 
branch which travelled over Asiatic Russia, and thence to Europe, producing the Mammoth 
E. primigenius and the other European species. 
Mastodon, as having the widest distribution—Europe, Asia, and America—as well as from 
being the most generalized type of the family, may well be considered as the most ancient 
form of the group ; its earliest occurrence in India is in the supra-nuramulitic beds of Sind 
and Kach, and its latest existence was probably in the marshes of the Ohio, where it not 
unlikely lived down to the human period; it is the only American representative of the 
family, and its migration may well have taken place from India westward to America. 
Mastodon was the first of the elephants to die out in India, it being unknown after the 
Siwalik period. 
The present specimen of Stegodon ganesa exhibits the whole of the cranium in very 
perfect aud complete condition; the chief injuries are the absence of the zygomatic arches, 
which have been broken off close to their respective origins ; and the absence of the greater 
portions of the tusks, the incisive sheaths having been broken off near their base; the bones 
composing the wall of the left temporal fossa have been much crushed and comminuted, but 
have been subsequently roughly recemented together by a calcareous infiltration. 
In its original state the cranium was almost completely embedded in a mass of the com¬ 
mon Siwalik grey sandstone, which, though generally soft, became almost as hard as granite 
as it approached the bone. The mass of stone in which the specimen was embedded was, as 
is so commonly the case with Siwalik fossils, a detached boulder, which had undergone a 
considerable amount of rolling and weathering: the fractured extremities of the tusks had 
evidently been exposed for a considerable time to the action of the weather, being much 
decomposed, and easily separating into a series of concentric rings. The bone had lost its 
animal matter, adhering very strongly to the tongue, and absorbing a great quantity of the 
glue with which it was treated. 
The general outline of the facial and frontal portions of the cranium correspond nearly 
with that of Colonel Baker’s large cranium of this species in the British Museum ; this is 
noticeable in the comparatively large size of the incisive sheaths, the large and deep fossa 
between them, and in the continuity of the fronto-incisive planes ; when examined in detail, 
however, certain smaller points of difference exhibit themselves. 
The frontal plane of Colonel Baker’s specimen of this species is remarkable for its 
broad and smooth expanse, scarcely roughened by any ridge or protuberance; in this speci¬ 
men a bold rounded ridge is continued upwards and backwards along the mesial line of the 
frontals from the nasals, and terminates in a rounded boss, some eight inches above the 
naso-frontal suture; on either side of this ridge there is a marked depression, broadest above 
the nasals, and gradually narrowing as it passes upwards : externally to this depression a 
sharp trihedral ridge is continued upwards from the post-orbital process of the frontal, im¬ 
perceptibly losing itself in the flat surface of the parietais. There is no resemblance to 
the flattened upper frontals and supra-nasal ridge of the cranium of Stegodon insignia. 
The large dimensions of the nasal bones (see table of measurements) differ from those 
of typical specimens of the species, and still more widely from those of all other species, 
especially S. insignia, in which they are remarkably small; they are more than double the 
size of the corresponding bones in Colonel Baker’s cranium, and four times that of the nasals 
